3 ms·

I am sorry for that but to be honest your comment suggests that you do not have tiniest idea of how hard medical research is. Not only are the topics you sugges

by patall 9y ago

I am sorry for that but to be honest your comment suggests that you do not have tiniest idea of how hard medical research is. Not only are the topics you suggest much more complicated than rare diseases (i.e. we do not know the exact molecular process but they are certainly much more complex and in the case of eye color, entirely developmental, so changing the genetic background would not switch your eye color), but also much more expensive (for these are nonmedical applications and therefore side affects would kill your drug). So we are talking in the order of 10 billion in R&D expenses. And then, unlike in case of orphan diseases, your patents will be weak and the margin will be low (compared to cost).

king07828 9y ago
I am sorry, but to be honest your comment suggests that you do not have tiniest idea of how insulting the first sentence of your comment is. Instead of simply conveying the idea that things are expensive, the first sentence of your comment is styled as a personal attack, which does not add to the discussion and should not have been included. For example, an alternative first sentence, which conveys the point being made without being a personal attack would be "Medical research is hard." Regarding the substance of your remarks, if 10,000 people have a rare disease then the 100 million dollars it takes to develop that therapy can only be amortized over that small pool, which translates to $10,000 per person, assuming that every person pays for the therapy. If 3 billion people (a rough estimate of everyone connected to the internet) is the market size for hair/eye color treatment and the 10 billion dollars of R&D gets amortized over that full-size, then the cost is $3.33 per person. If only 10% of people want to change colors, and only 10% of those people are willing to partake in the therapy, then the cost becomes $333.33 per person to amortize the R&D expense, which is in the same order of magnitude as contacts or a salon hair treatment.

by patall 9y ago

king07828 9y ago

I am sorry, but to be honest your comment suggests that you do not have tiniest idea of how insulting the first sentence of your comment is. Instead of simply conveying the idea that things are expensive, the first sentence of your comment is styled as a personal attack, which does not add to the discussion and should not have been included. For example, an alternative first sentence, which conveys the point being made without being a personal attack would be "Medical research is hard." Regarding the substance of your remarks, if 10,000 people have a rare disease then the 100 million dollars it takes to develop that therapy can only be amortized over that small pool, which translates to $10,000 per person, assuming that every person pays for the therapy. If 3 billion people (a rough estimate of everyone connected to the internet) is the market size for hair/eye color treatment and the 10 billion dollars of R&D gets amortized over that full-size, then the cost is $3.33 per person. If only 10% of people want to change colors, and only 10% of those people are willing to partake in the therapy, then the cost becomes $333.33 per person to amortize the R&D expense, which is in the same order of magnitude as contacts or a salon hair treatment.